WEC: Ram Racing withdraws from Spa

The British-based Ram Racing Ferrari team has withdrawn from the next round of the World Endurance Championship at Spa in May.

Last year's European Le Mans Series GTE class winner, which has stepped up to the WEC for its second season of competition in 2014, has removed its two Ferrari 458 Italias from the Belgian event because of what a team statement described as an "unforeseen budget shortfall."

Team principal Dan Shufflebottom said: "This decision has been taken after much soul-searching and a massive amount of number-crunching, and has come as a bit of a body blow to us at Ram Racing. We knew when we stepped up to the WEC from the ELMS that the budgets required would be greatly increased and we were fully confident that we'd meet our financial targets."

Shufflebottom explained that the team had made the decision in order to ensure that it will be in a position to make its Le Mans 24 Hours debut in June.

"We're suffering an embarrassing, temporary shortfall and, in order to protect our participation at Le Mans and onwards in the WEC, we have taken the difficult decision to not participate at Spa."

The latest move follows its decision not to update its Ferrari entered in the GTE Am class to 2013 specification as allowed in the rules.

The Am car shared by Johnny Mowlem, Ben Collins and Mark Patterson finished fifth in class at last weekend's WEC opener at Silverstone, the lead entry driven by Matt Griffin and Alvaro Parente sixth in GTE Pro.